Holy Spirit

Read the following factual statements and see if you can identify the two drugs, readily available throughout human history, to which they refer:

1) It's used by some people in small doses to provide comfort in trying times, a catalyst for forming friendships and mutually supportive communities, and in some cases, even inspiration.

2) For some people, it is hideously addictive.

3) It causes many addicts (and addicts-in-waiting) to act like supreme cosmic bell-ends, and worse, puts them under the illusion that anything they do "under the influence" is justifiable by the very fact that they were thus intoxicated.

4) In the worst cases, it makes users angry and violent, and equally convinced that hurting others is justified by the drug they're hooked on.

So. Alcohol and religion. Can anyone give me a good argument as to why these two drugs are not identical in their effects? Or failing that, why we shouldn't restrict the supply of the latter to over-eighteens, voluntarily consuming it in strictly supervised environments, as we do the former?

I only ask because this week, a young man was hacked to death in the street by a group of men who had been raised as Christians and converted to Islam. Not that it particularly matters what they call their drug; the very fact that they venerate an imaginary friend in the sky more than a fellow human is more than enough to make me vomit, no matter what brand they slap on it. Given different conditions, they could have been shooting abortion doctors for God or enforcing 21st century apartheid in the name of Yahweh, but no, they chose the one who rewards the slaughter of decent people with an arbitrary number of sexually inexperienced girls in the magical land beyond the clouds. Does it make sense to you? There's about as much intelligence in it as in the pie-eyed fucker who lamps his other half from one end of the house to another, then dewy-eyed the next day, blames it all on the booze.

It's usually around this point in the rant that I get interrupted by some haughty busybody calling me a "militant atheist", and telling me that I have no right to attack the beliefs of others. So let's get this straight: I have no problem whatsoever with people who practise a religion or spiritual faith in such a way that conforms to Figure 1 on my list above, any more than I'd have a problem with a few mates getting together down the pub for a pint or two. It's normal to seek companionship and comfort in other humans, and yes, death is a terrifying enough prospect that we should share our mutual fears of it every now and then. My gripe, as a man who spent years supplying alcohol for a living, and as a man who happens to care about folks in general, is solely with those who abuse the drug and use it as an excuse for their own depraved twatteries. Little old ladies at the vicar's tea party have nothing to fear from me (unless, of course, they end up stoning the vicar to death for being a gay African witch).

As I write this, the braindead baboons of the EDL and BNP are seizing on the death of Lee Rigby to pursue an agenda of indiscriminate racism and bigotry, while the martyrdom junkies revel in the chaos their ilk have caused. There's the potential for a lot of good people of many different backgrounds to get hurt. But I'm getting on with the business of being a sane human being - or whatever passes for one these days - and I hope others can find it in them to do the same. Have a beer together. If you really want, have a chat about the magic bloke in the clouds together. But for fuck's sake, folks, we need to put an end to destructive behaviour, no matter what the cause. If we can't, then magic bloke in the clouds help us all.